Tag:sadaqah

Let me tell you something about the so-called “good girl.” She exists in every Asian country, but in Vietnam she has been polished to near perfection. She is ngoan — obedient. She is hiếu thảo — filial. She smiles sweetly, studies hard, lowers her voice, keeps her skirt the “right” length, and never, ever embarrasses the family. She carries the invisible weight of tam tòng tứ đức — those old “three obediences and four virtues” that still float around dinner tables long after everyone pretends they are outdated. And now?...

Half of the girls in Ratanakiri are married before they turn 18. Let that sit with you for a moment. Not in 1826. Not in some dusty colonial archive. Now. In the same Cambodia that boasts luxury condos in Phnom Penh and five-star eco-resorts in Mondulkiri. Spicy Auntie has been on those red dirt roads in the northeast. I’ve seen the stilt houses, the forested hills, the long stretches where a secondary school is not a building but a distant idea. So before anyone jumps in with easy outrage —...

Every Ramadan, we talk about generosity as if it were soft. Sweet. Gentle. But let me tell you something: zakat is not soft. Zakat is economic power. Across South and Southeast Asia, from Jakarta to Karachi, from Mindanao to Dhaka, women are doing the arithmetic of survival long before anyone calculates their 2.5 percent. Widows stretching cash to cover school fees. Single mothers juggling rent and rice prices. Refugee women running micro-kitchens inside camps. Women-led businesses surviving on margins so thin they could slice your conscience. And then Ramadan arrives....

So here we are again, my darlings. Another week, another data breach — and this time it involves Tenga, the sleek Japanese brand that convinced half the planet that buying a masturbation sleeve could feel like purchasing a designer thermos. Let me be clear: I have zero interest in shaming anyone for buying sex toys. Pleasure is not a crime. In fact, I applaud brands that helped drag sexual wellness out of the neon-lit shadows and into minimalist, lifestyle-friendly daylight. Tenga built an empire on destigmatizing desire. Clean packaging. Industrial...

Let me tell you something uncomfortable: when judges start sounding more progressive than politicians, you know society is having an identity crisis. For years now, India’s Supreme Court has been dragged—sometimes reluctantly, sometimes heroically—into the battlefield of gender, sexuality and sex crimes. And while aunties at family dinners still whisper about “culture” and “tradition,” the bench has been whispering back something far more dangerous: dignity. When the Court decriminalised same-sex love, it wasn’t just striking down a dusty colonial relic. It was saying that intimacy is not a crime scene....